The thing I'd almost done startled and frightened me. I began thinking I should ask Nicholas not to bring me any more books, but I was ashamed to refuse gifts offered to me with such magnanimity just because of my fear. Beyond that, the books seemed to me the last bridge to a part of the world that was fading ever more rapidly from view.
As more items are prohibited, more amateurs take up smuggling. I learned this in the ghetto during the war, where almost everything became unobtainable — rice, cocoa, cigarette-lighters, writing-paper, coffee and candles, not to mention jewellery, cigarettes or money. Even the most decent, law-abiding souls decided to ignore such perverted regulations. Where the law goes berserk, all of us become felons. My father, a scholar led by the very essence of his work to be a man of anxious propriety, brought within the ghetto walls a roll of thousand-crown notes and for the first time in his life was confronted with the basic problem every smuggler faces: where to hide his stash.
In the room we were forced to live in at the time, there was only a single piece of furniture — an old sideboard with many battered drawers. When the drawer on the extreme left was pulled out, a small depression could be felt on the side wall, a flaw left by the cabinet-maker. It proved an ideal hiding place for our treasure. The opening for the drawer was so narrow that only a child's arm could reach in, so I was given the task of placing the roll of money into the depression. I wasn't to breathe a word of what I had done to anyone, nor was I allowed to get fat, or the hiding
place would have become inaccessible. I carried out my task faithfully, and thus at the age of ten found myself a member of the criminal fraternity.
I entered that company in the firm conviction that I had done good work.
It was two-thirty when I finally reached Nicholas's house. It was still snowing heavily. Here, on the outskirts of the city, the snow did not melt, but settled thickly on tree branches and the roof-tops. The chain-link fence surrounding the tennis-courts stretched like a swag of lace between iron poles. In the middle of the road, cars had made deep ruts in the snow. I knew this end of the city well. My first love had lived not far from here and we had often wandered the neighbouring streets looking for dark corners where we could embrace. Right now I wasn't thinking about that. Right now the world had become an alien and hostile place, and everyone in it was a potential threat.
You should always mentally rehearse how you would behave and what you would say if you were arrested. It wasn't hard to guess what they would ask.
'What books have you brought with you?' the investigator asked the twenty-seven-year-old smuggler of subversive books, Jiřík Vostrý, on 19 April, 1732.
'I have brought three. One: The New Testament; Two: On True Christianity, Three: Two Countrymen Converse on the Subject of Faith.'
'Where are those books now and for whom were they intended?'
' On True Christianity was received by Litochlev; he gave me one score and ten groschen for it. Two Countrymen Converse, that went to Kaliban, a miller from Kamenné
Sedliště. And the third remained in my pocket; it was confiscated when I was taken.'
'At first you claimed you traded only with Litochleb in Morašice and Kladivo in Lubný. Now you tell me you also called upon the miller in Sedliště?'
'I did. I had forgotten.'
'And how did you come by the knowledge that the miller of Sedliště also cleaved to your cause?'
'I was told he had knowledge of our faith. Litochlev told me.'
'What did you do when you were with this miller, this Kaliban? What was your talk about?'
'Our talk was of God. He told me his people were in sore need of help, for they were weak in the faith. I assured him the Lord God would give them strength.'
'And what else?'
'I don't remember.'
'Who else did you speak with? Who were you going to see? What others have knowledge of your faith?'
'I know none.'
That was two and a half centuries ago. It's exactly the same now, right down to the inaccuracies in the report. How well I know it! They are incapable of setting down names correctly.
I took a careful look around the tennis-courts. Two mothers were pushing prams alongside the lace fence. No one else was in sight. But there was a delivery van parked at the top of the street. The spies could easily be secreted inside with their cameras. I studied the vehicle. Though I couldn't see inside, it appeared cold and empty.
The street I now entered was a dead end — a perfect trap. I had to walk past three small villas before I got to the
building where Nicholas lived. I looked around once more. A snow-covered Saab was parked by the kerb opposite his house — but that belonged here. A short distance down the street, however, I saw a caravan that hadn't been here two months ago.
That frightened me.
I don't feel a great affinity for those who smuggled books into this country before the Edict of Toleration of 1781, subversive books which the authorities of that time thought should have been burned. Or at least — unlike those book smugglers of old — I don't hold printed paper in such high regard. The things we write are no longer prompted by God and therefore they are as we ourselves are: good and evil, sometimes wise, and often foolish. Censorship may add to a book's appeal, but it can add nothing to its wisdom.
I walked over to the caravan. The snow around it was untouched, and the boarded window on the windward side was completely covered with sticky snow; there was no opening through which a hidden camera might peer. I went up to the main entrance to Nicholas's building. I was just reaching out to ring the bell when I realized I'd forgotten to take a final look around. I withdrew my hand, stared a moment longer at the column of name-plates by the gate, even though I normally pay no attention to them. Then I turned around slowly. The windows of the building across the street were dark, the curtains drawn. If anyone were hiding behind them, I had no hope of seeing. An elderly lady leading a reddish boxer was walking in my direction from the tiny park. The dog stopped and plunged his muzzle into the snow; the lady bent over him. I could still pretend that I hadn't found the name I was looking for and stroll over to the main entrance of the next apartment
building, but I suddenly felt disgusted at the comedy I'd been playing to this innocent old woman. I pressed the doorbell.
Ten years ago my wife and I went on a cruise to Israel, our first visit to that part of the world. The trip had been my wife's idea and she had triumphed over the customary reluctance of officials to permit such journeys to happen. She had moved about the ship in a state of rapture. She was delighted to discover that there were several Israeli citizens on board and she immediately set about to make friends. Her favourite was a black-haired, dark-skinned Levantine woman, who reminded me of the gypsies that ran carnival merry-go-rounds. She taught my wife Israeli songs and won her heart. It turned out that the woman's gesture was not entirely altruistic. As we neared Haifa, she came forward with a request. She was taking her mother a small rug from Greece. Nothing special, but customs officials tend to be more difficult with their own citizens than with foreigners. Could my wife take the carpet through customs for her? The Levantine thrust at my wife a roll of something that weighed more than all our baggage put together. It was carefully wrapped in dark brown paper.
I asked my wife if she was aware that the parcel might well contain a disassembled machine-gun or cocaine or a stolen Leonardo or gold bars, but she was positive the parcel contained nothing but a carpet. Why should her new friend lie to her? I tried to explain that she could be the victim of a professional smuggler and that it would be prudent either to return the parcel or at least to unwrap it and see what was really inside.